Domestic Waste Water Systems – Legislation?

by charliewilson | May 30, 2023

Domestic Waste Water Systems - Legislation?

On the list of climate actions any home with a garden can “easily” engage in, we’d like to see the topic of Domestic Waste Waters; how to avoid them and how to reuse them in our immediate landscapes; for food resilience, for wildfire prevention, for shelterbelts for biodiversity and so on.

The NBS of reedbeds or other phytopurifying installations are well known solutions already for working with grey waters. WET-lands or leeching fields can also take higher levels of “contamination”. Vermicomposting toilets work, and in combination with a secondary and terciary purifying process (aquatic plants in gravel beds + woodchip bowls or channels in combination with vegetation) provide a nutrient rich water source for our foodscapes, firebelts and biodiversity hedges.

Project Aims

We feel there is a need for awareness raising of these Nature Based Solutions on a domestic scale as well as a lack of transparency in legislation in these matters.

Therefore we would like to take time to list European and maybe also global legal frameworks that allow to reuse domestic waste waters in our gardens and under which circumstances.

We want to identify and document case studies and free up funds to conduct proper research such as laboratory tests on effluents of maturing and mature systems and/or soil irrigated with these effluents.

Ideally we can give anyone working with water professionally the jumping board they need to back up their often innovative (to the ears of some) solutions in front of administrations or their clients, especially now that we are living a general time of droughts and floods in many areas of the globe.

Funded with 876.15 GBP through emergent festival

STATUS : ongoing

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Team

Aline VaMo, Kinga Milankovics

Reporting Officer: Aline VaMo

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Area

Prototyping, Emergent festival, Next Steps project

Objectives

April 2023

1. Survey:

1. During the 2 months survey we gather information about already existing material online in the form of infographics, articles, documents, professional services and projects in favour of using the NBS mentioned above and document the resources found in a NextCloud folder and spreadsheet with links.
2. During this stage we also search for legislation and list interesting resources or research papers mentioning such legislation in a spreadsheet and NextCloud folder.
Analysis: During this 2 months’ phase we go through the materials found and identify the top 3 case studies, the top 3 legal frameworks to work within and the top 3 habits to adopt for optimal reuse of your domestic waste waters
Design: In the last phase of again 2 months we will edit the data and the raw material, and pour it into an informative, professional looking, educational slideshow presentation that can be shared online.

OUTCOMEs

September 2023 Update

So far we have started a database that is open to the public and which we hope you can can add resources to: https://cloud.perma.earth/s/Xx4ZWSZ9ReoTMDD

We are working on pouring the key findings and case studies of this Emergent Festival funded project into a shareable presentation format, which should be ready by the end of October, as per the “Next Steps Project” outline for this edition of the festival.

resources created

contact links

Permaculture Places in the Metaverse

Research into and development of permaculture-themed virtual 3D worlds for the open source Mozilla Hubs platform.

Funded with 232.30 GBP through emergent festival

STATUS : ongoing

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Team

Rakesh Rootsman Rak, Ewan Findley, Jemma Findley

Reporting Officer: Ewan Findley

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Area

Prototyping, Emergent festival, Next Steps project

Objectives

Phase one: research & planning (May-Jun 2023)
- Identify affordances, limitations and potential for the Mozilla Hubs platform
- Explore and identify suitable permaculture themes and concepts based on the above
- Develop these ideas into more detailed virtual world plans
Phase two: Development (Jul-Aug)
- Build the worlds defined in 1.3 (above) using open source tools such as Blender and Spoke
Phase three: Publishing and Launch (Sep)
- Publish the developed worlds with a Creative Commons CC-BY 3.0 license using Spoke
- Share this via CoLab Slack, newsletter and website article
- Present and demonstrate the world(s) to permaculture educators at the in-person Educators Gathering in September 2023 organised by the Permaculture Association. This will be demonstrated on phone, desktop and VR headset, along with an introduction to the Hubs platform and the metaverse as a concept.
Ongoing: learning & reporting
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- Updated aims due to lack of funding through the Emergent festival –
- The project can continue as planned within this budget. Proposed work within this budget is as follows:
  Jemma, Rakesh and Ewan have two 1.5 hour meetings (total 9 hours work at suggested hourly rates).
  Rakesh 3 x 25h = £75
  Jemma 3 x 25h = £75
  Ewan 3 x 22h = £66Total £216
- These meetings will cover the first two items from phase one:
  Phase one: research & planning– Identify affordances, limitations and potential for the Mozilla Hubs platform
  – Explore and identify suitable permaculture themes and concepts based on the above.
- By the end of this the outputs will be;
- – notes documenting the process
  – recordings of the sessions that can be shared with CoLab and our educator and permaculture networks
- The remaining budget will be used to edit the notes and recordings to make sure they are useful for distribution for others to learn from.Ewan 0.5h x £22 = £11I will seek further funding for continuation of the work, with the aim to complete a usable prototype for testing and sharing.

OUTCOMEs

resources created

contact links

Stories to Decolonise Permaculture

Creating a free resource of stories about the origins and inspirations behind permaculture to aid teachers and practitioners in decolonising permaculture

Funded with 610 GBP through emergent festival

STATUS : ongoing

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Team

Rakesh Rootsman Rak, Ewan Findley, Jemma Findley

Reporting Officer: Rakesh Rootsman Rak

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Area

Diversity, participation and engagement, Emergent festival, Next Steps project

Objectives

April 2023

By the end of October 2023 we will have
1. A way for people to capture electronically stories of the origins and inspirations of permaculture.
2. A process in place to verify the content
3. A way in which to share for free verified content to the public
4. Run a session for CoLab to explain how people can add content and how to use the content
5. Run a session for Permaculture Association Britain’s Educators CoP to explain how they can add content and how to use the content
6. Deliver a session on this work at the UK Permaculture convergence in September

Updated aims due to lack of funding through the Emergent Festival –

The amount allocated means we have budget for 24 hours of work, hence the first 3 parts of the project
8 – 8 – Look at what data we want to capture
8 – 16 – Create a structure to hold the data in a meaningful and flexible way (normalisation)
8 – 24 – Create a way for people to enter the initial sample content.

To complete the project we will apply for further funding from the CoLab Diversity pot.
For any shortfall, we will do crowdfunding to the general permaculture people worldwide.
We are confident we will achieve this, so this initial amount is a great way to get us up and running.

OUTCOMEs

September 2023 Update

We have completed the following;

Look at what data we want to capture.
Create a structure to hold the data in a meaningful and flexible way (normalisation).
Create a way for people to enter the initial sample content
Invite a select group of people to enter content.
Get feedback from contributors (what worked, what did not work, modifications do we need to make).
Evaluate the data we want to capture.
Adjust the data structure.
Update data entry.
You can find the form here

Next steps are;

Rakesh will present this at the Educators gathering this weekend and invite people to add more stories. During this meeting we will invite people to look at different aspects of the project, including the following

A) Verification process. How do we verify the content? Is it done by one person or 2? Who should do it? Can it be a team of several people, at least 2 of whom check and verify. What is the criteria? i.e. is it a historic or current practice, does it reflect permaculture practices, principles and ethics, does it reflect the story of the oppressor or oppressed, is it inclusive)

B) Technology: How do we present the content (front end) what back end technology do we use?

C) Future of the project: Once collated, how do we disseminate? How much content is enough, do we stop collating or is it never ending
Ewan and I will then design the back end to store the final content and the front end to present the data

resources created

contact links

Communicating Permaculture in Spanish

We feel that when trying to promote permaculture in the Spanish speaking world there are still several hurdles to overcome. One main hurdle seems to be a series of prejudices about permaculture, often confusing the term with an ecological gardening or cultivation technique. We have also personally experienced and received the feedback that the concept is either connected to something that is done only by people who have a lot of money (think big earthworks for example) or by people who use the idea of natural processes as an excuse for being lazy (and want everything for free).

In this context we feel there is a clear need and opportunity in the Spanish speaking world to communicate the basic ideas of permaculture more explicitly and in detail, including all the ethical and other principles as well as all the permaculture flower petals or RetroSuburbia’s 3 B’s (Built Biological and Behavioural) and show its value by doing so. At the same time we feel this could be creating a ground to give impulse to a variety of permaculture projects throughout the Spanish speaking permaculture community, in all its social, economical and cultural contexts.

The idea is to create a meetingplace for Spanish speaking permaculture practictioners and/or interessees, where material optimized for different social networks could be co-created. These resources would be a toolkit for anyone that wants to promote permaculture in Spanish. This facilitated meetingplace and participatory process would give space to different voices and perspectives of permaculture, trying to reflect its diversity but also offer criteria of maintaining quality and some unifying guidelines. Ideally, the basic material resulting from this process would be available for free online through the CoLab website, open to be built on at a future stage.

Funded with 510.44 GBP through emergent festival

STATUS : ongoing

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Team

Kathy Otto, Jorge Barbosa, Aline VaMo

Reporting Officer: Kathy Otto

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Area

Diversity, participation and engagement, Emergent festival, Next Steps project

Objectives

Create a draft image of the recent state of permaculture thinking in the Spanish speaking world, identifying the countries and areas that are proclaiming to have a permaculture movement, visualizing who speaks about permaculture in which areas, what they are saying and in what direction they are developing (family projects, ecovillage, professional designers, regenerative agriculture practitioners…) → spreadsheet
Create and reinforce connections between different permaculture practitioners in the Spanish speaking world, with a special focus on those who approach permaculture professionally or wish to do so, by using a participatory process for the design of GG (General Goal) 3.
Create texts and images optimized for different social media platforms (facebook, instagram, whatsapp…) that help permaculture practitioners (and specifically professional consultants, designers and educators) in the Spanish speaking world to communicate fundamental concepts and ideas of permaculture. These resources will also help to make visible to a wider audience the value of the permaculture design approach in our current global climate and socioeconomic context.
- Make the created material freely and easily available on perma.earth and through collaborating agents.
- Impulse the circulation of the created material in the social media channels of the participants of the process by a hashtag campaign.

OUTCOMEs

resources created

contact links

CoLab Podcast

The CoLab Podcast was funded through the Emergent Festival and is hosted on the Learn website.

In these Podcast interviews, we interview people from around the world who are involved in interesting and inspiring grassroots permaculture projects.

Aims of the project

The aim is to give a platform for grassroots permaculture projects to speak about what they are doing and to gain exposure and promotion.

We also aim to create a pool of educational resources that can be accessed by anybody. This will provide value and will help to attract people to the CoLab.

Funded with 764.35 GBP through emergent festival

STATUS : ongoing

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Team

Charlie Wilson, Daniel Attwell

Reporting Officer: Charlie Wilson

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Area

Training and eLearning, Emergent festival, Next Steps project

Objectives

April 2023

We would prepare by using the CoLab slack channel and CoLab newsletter to find 6 willing participants who want to be interviewed about their grassroots permaculture projects. This could take 1 month.

Before the interviews, we would glean some basic information about the participant’s projects so that we can then prepare questions.

The interviews themselves would be 1 hour long at a maximum. We would aim to do one interview a week, over the course of 6 weeks. We would pay the participants a fee for the interviews as an incentive.

After the interviews, there may need to be some minor editing. We would need to do a short write-up and then upload the materials to the Learn website, perhaps adding some graphics and making it look presentable.

We would then seek to promote the podcasts using the CoLab Slack channel, CoLab LinkedIn, and CoLab newsletter.

OUTCOMEs

Update September 2023

We received extra funding, and now have the capacity to record 7 podcast interviews.

So far, 5 of the interviews have been conducted. We have listened back, made edits, and uploaded the interviews.

We have created a “home” page for the CoLab podcasts and then created individual web pages for each interview. We have added a write-up and some simple graphics.

We plan to release one episode per month, using the CoLab newsletter, slack channel, and LinkedIn channel to promote the podcast episodes.

resources created

The CoLab Podcast webpage

Domestic Waste Water Systems - Legislation?

Team

Area

Objectives

OUTCOMEs

resources created

contact links

Related

Permaculture Places in the Metaverse

Team

Area

Objectives

OUTCOMEs

resources created

contact links

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Stories to Decolonise Permaculture

Team

Area

Objectives

OUTCOMEs

resources created

contact links

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Communicating Permaculture in Spanish

Team

Area

Objectives

OUTCOMEs

resources created

contact links

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CoLab Podcast

Team

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Objectives

OUTCOMEs

resources created

contact links

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